On Thu, 20 Feb 2003, Damien Sullivan wrote: >On Thu, Feb 20, 2003 at 08:50:01PM -0700, Andrew Lias wrote: >> Saberhagen had a series of stories written in this world. It has, >> IMO, absolutely no similarity to the East of Brusts work. >I think similarities can be seen. The Swords and Great Weapons are >the most obvious one. I'd think that the idea of intelligent, soul-eating weapons owes more to Michael Moorcock anyway. > I don't think the similarities add up to anything other than loose >memetic convergence, mind you, but they're not non-existent. Nothing >for Mark to get excited or worried over, I'd say. > >Especially given the guy can't spell "Brust", "you", or "Please". > Or "Dragaera", "genesis", "believe" or "vanishes". The OP also gets wrong who Steve thanks for the "Idea / genisis" (sic); it is Robert Sloane / Adrian Morgan / Adrienne Thornley [1] (see forwarded e-mail from same, which has a more explicit history of the RPG that became Piarra, and later, Dragaera) - none of which is a pseudonym for Fred Saberhagen. "Burst", indeed. Bah. "Empire of the East" is a good book, by the way, and I recommend it. However, as already mentioned, the world is quite explicitly our own in a strange and distant future. Besides the demons being sentient, transmogrified thermonuclear blasts, there are various things that are obviously technological, such as a military tank with various hi-tech toys. The gods are mostly explicitly from classical mythology (Hindu pantheon in "Empire", Roman pantheon in "Swords") (well, except when they're hyperevolved dogs), as opposed to the all-new (or from a mythology I've never heard of) gods of Dragaera. The first few Books of Swords are fun fluff, but the later Books of Lost Swords are sad examples of the Brain-Eater destroying yet another author's brain. [1] Hmm. I wonder... Adrienne ==> e'Drien?